With the existing emerging differentiation in mobile communication services, such as the differentiation in voice connections, data transportation, portal access and content access in mobile data communication systems, users of these services loose insight and control over what is being paid for which service. Especially users using services on a prepaid basis feel the need to control their expenses. On the other hand there is a need by service providers to control the balance of differentiated services and take specific actions per differentiated service. These service providers can be different parties.
A common way to use and pay for communication services today is to have one main account from which all services are paid for. For example in a mobile communications system suitable for GSM (speech) and GPRS (data) this main account can be a prepaid account from which the user pays for conversations, data transportation, access to mobile internet portals such as an i-mode portal and access to paid content services such as a paid website for weather information. If the main account has insufficient balance the user is unable to use any service. This could even mean that upgrading the balance on the main account is not possible using the communication system.
The prior art document WO02/11460 describes a method for enabling a second set of services and disabling a first set of services when the balance for the first set of services reaches a minimum limit. By having a service for upgrading the balance in the second set of services the user will be able to upgrade the balance on the main account, even though the balance of the main account is insufficient to use the first set of services.
What is lacking in the prior art document of WO02/11460 is a method to differentiate services into differentiated service accounts in order to give users better control over what is being paid for which service, and to be able to start specific actions when the balance of a specific service reaches a predefined limit.
WO01/86933 describes a method and a system for operating a communications infrastructure on a pre-payment basis. In WO01/86933 when a pre-payment subscriber joins the network, the current credit amount for the subscriber is distributed as credit values between user-specific virtual purses each associated with a respective metered resource. Upon use of a metered resource by the subscriber, the credit value held in the associated purse is correspondingly reduced, with use of the resource being dependent on the purse being in credit. The virtual purses are preferably electronically distributed to be close by the metered resources to which they relate whereby to reduce network billing traffic. When the subscriber leaves the network, the remaining credit values are consolidated from the purses.
The virtual purses of WO01/86933 are used as payment caches to improve the flexibility and responsiveness of the payment system. They cannot be used to differentiate services into differentiated service accounts in order to give users better control over what is being paid for which service, and to be able to start specific actions when the balance of a specific service reaches a predefined limit.
Problem Definition
Thus the prior art fails to disclose a solution to deal with the accounting of differentiated services. In particular there is no good solution to give users insight and control over what is paid for which differentiated service. Also for service providers there is no good solution to take actions on a differentiated service account basis.
Aim of the Invention
The aim of the invention is to provide a solution to deal with the accounting of differentiated services. In particular a solution is provided to give users control over their expenses on a differentiated service basis. Also to service providers a solution is to be provided to take actions on a differentiated services account basis.